The Hermit of the Hudson was hustling about his cave withunusual animation. The cave was on or in the top of a little spur of the Catskillsthat had strayed down to the river's edge, and, not having a ferryticket, had to stop there. The bijou mountains were densely woodedand were infested by ferocious squirrels and woodpeckers thatforever menaced the summer transients. Like a badly sewn strip ofwhite braid, a macadamized road ran between the green skirt of thehills and the foamy lace of the river's edge. A dim path wound fromthe comfortable road up a rocky height to the hermit's cave. Onemile upstream was the Viewpoint Inn, to which summer folk from thecity came; leaving cool, electric-fanned apartments that they mightbe driven about in burning sunshine, shrieking, in gasolinelaunches, by spindle-legged Modreds bearing the blankest ofshields. Train your lorgnette upon the hermit and let your eye receivethe personal touch that shall endear you to the hero. A man of forty, judging him fairly, with long hair curling atthe ends, dramatic eyes, and a forked brown beard like those thatwere imposed upon the West some years ago by self-appointed "divinehealers" who succeeded the grasshopper crop. His outward vestureappeared to be kind of gunny-sacking cut and made into a garmentthat would have made the fortune of a London tailor. His long,well-shaped fingers, delicate nose, and poise of manner raised himhigh above the class of hermits who fear water and bury money inoyster-cans in their caves in spots indicated by rude crosseschipped in the stone wall above. The hermit's home was not altogether a cave. The cave was anaddition to the hermitage, which was a rude hut made of polesdaubed with clay and covered with the best quality of rust-proofzinc roofing. In the house proper there were stone slabs for seats, a rusticbookcase made of unplaned poplar planks, and a table formed of awooden slab laid across two upright pieces of granite-somethingbetween the furniture of a Druid temple and that of a Broadwaybeefsteak dungeon. Hung against the walls were skins of wildanimals purchased in the vicinity of Eighth Street and UniversityPlace, New York. The rear of the cabin merged into the cave. There the hermitcooked his meals on a rude stone hearth. With infinite patience andan old axe he had chopped natural shelves in the rocky walls. Onthem stood his stores of flour, bacon, lard, talcum-powder,kerosene, baking- powder, sodamint tablets, pepper, salt, andOlivo-Cremo Emulsion for chaps and roughness of the hands andface. The hermit had hermited there for ten years. He was an asset ofthe Viewpoint Inn. To its guests he was second in interest only tothe Mysterious Echo in the Haunted Glen. And the Lover's Leap beathim only a few inches, flat-footed. He was known far (but not verywide, on account of the topography) as a. scholar of brilliantintellect who had forsworn the world because he had been jilted ina love affair. Every Saturday night the Viewpoint Inn sent to himsurreptitiously a basket of provisions. He never left the immediateoutskirts of his hermitage. Guests of the inn who
visited him saidhis store of knowledge, wit, and scintillating philosophy weresimply wonderful, you know. That summer the Viewpoint Inn was crowded with guests. So, onSaturday nights, there were extra cans of tomatoes, and sirloinsteak, instead of "rounds," in the hermit's basket. Now you have the material allegations in the case. So, make wayfor Romance. Evidently the hermit expected a visitor. He carefully combed hislong hair and parted his apostolic beard. When theninety-eight-cent alarm-clock on a stone shelf announced the hourof five he picked up his gunny-sacking skirts, brushed themcarefully, gathered an oaken staff, and strolled slowly into thethick woods that surrounded the hermitage. He had not long to wait. Up the faint pathway, slippery with itscarpet of pine-needles, toiled Beatrix, youngest and fairest of thefamous Trenholme sisters. She was all in blue from hat to canvaspumps, varying in tint from the shade of the tinkle of a bluebellat daybreak on a spring Saturday to the deep hue of a Mondaymorning at nine when the washer-woman has failed to show up. Beatrix dug her cerulean parasol deep into the pine-needles andsighed. The hermit, on the q. t., removed a grass burr from theankle of one sandalled foot with the big toe of his other one. She blued--and almost starched and ironed him--with her cobalteyes. "It must be so nice," she said in little, tremulous gasps, "tobe a hermit, and have ladies climb mountains to talk to you." The hermit folded his arms and leaned against a tree. Beatrix,with a sigh, settled down upon the mat of pine-needles like abluebird upon her nest. The hermit followed suit; drawing his feetrather awkwardly under his gunny-sacking. "It must be nice to be a mountain," said he, with ponderouslightness, "and have angels in blue climb up you instead of flyingover you." "Mamma had neuralgia," said Beatrix, "and went to bed, or Icouldn't have come. It's dreadfully hot at that horrid old inn. Butwe hadn't the money to go anywhere else this summer." "Last night," said the hermit, "I climbed to the top of that bigrock above us. I could see the lights of the inn and hear a strainor two of the music when the wind was right. I imagined you movinggracefully in the arms of others to the dreamy music of the waltzamid the fragrance of flowers. Think how lonely I must havebeen!" The youngest, handsomest, and poorest of the famous Trenholmesisters sighed. "You haven't quite hit it," she said, plaintively. "I was movinggracefully at the arms of another. Mamma had one of her periodicalattacks of rheumatism in both elbows and shoulders, and I had
torub them for an hour with that horrid old liniment. I hope youdidn't think that smelled like flowers. You know, there were someWest Point boys and a yachtload of young men from the city at lastevening's weekly dance. I've known mamma to sit by an open windowfor three hours with one-half of her registering 85 degrees and theother half frostbitten, and never sneeze once. But just let a bunchof ineligibles come around where I am, and she'll begin to swell atthe knuckles and shriek with pain. And I have to take her to herroom and rub her arms. To see mamma dressed you'd be surprised toknow the number of square inches of surface there are to her arms.I think it must be delightful to be a hermit. That--cassock--gabardine, isn't it?--that you wear is so becoming. Do you makeit--or them--of course you must have changes- yourself? And what ablessed relief it must be to wear sandals instead of shoes! Thinkhow we must suffer--no matter how small I buy my shoes they alwayspinch my toes. Oh, why can't there be lady hermits, too!" The beautifulest and most adolescent Trenholme sister extendedtwo slender blue ankles that ended in two enormous blue-silk bowsthat almost concealed two fairy Oxfords, also of one of theforty-seven shades of blue. The hermit, as if impelled by a kind ofreflex- telepathic action, drew his bare toes farther beneath hisgunny- sacking. "I have heard about the romance of your life," said MissTrenholme, softly. "They have it printed on the back of the menucard at the inn. Was she very beautiful and charming?" "On the bills of fare!" muttered the hermit; "but what do I carefor the world's babble? Yes, she was of the highest and grandesttype. Then," he continued, "then I thought the world could nevercontain another equal to her. So I forsook it and repaired to thismountain fastness to spend the remainder of my life alone--todevote and dedicate my remaining years to her memory." "It's grand," said Miss Trenholme, "absolutely grand. I think ahermit's life is the ideal one. No bill-collectors calling, nodressing for dinner--how I'd like to be one! But there's no suchluck for me. If I don't marry this season I honestly believe mammawill force me into settlement work or trimming hats. It isn'tbecause I'm getting old or ugly; but we haven't enough money leftto butt in at any of the swell places any more. And I don't want tomarry--unless it's somebody I like. That's why I'd like to be ahermit. Hermits don't ever marry, do they ?" "Hundreds of 'em," said the hermit, "when they've found theright one." "But they're hermits," said the youngest and beautifulest,"because they've lost the right one, aren't they?" "Because they think they have," answered the recluse, fatuously."Wisdom comes to one in a mountain cave as well as to one in theworld of 'swells,' as I believe they are called in the argot." "When one of the 'swells' brings it to them," said MissTrenholme. "And my folks are swells. That's the trouble. But thereare so many swells at the seashore in the summer-time that wehardly amount to more than ripples. So we've had to put all ourmoney into river and harbor appropriations. We were all girls, youknow. There were four of us. I'm the only surviving one. The othershave been married off. All to money. Mamma is so proud of mysisters. They send her
the loveliest pen-wipers and art calendarsevery Christmas. I'm the only one on the market now. I'm forbiddento look at any one who hasn't money." "But--" began the hermit. "But, oh," said the beautifulest "of course hermits have greatpots of gold and doubloons buried somewhere near three greatoak-trees. They all have." "I have not," said the hermit, regretfully. "I'm so sorry," said Miss Trenholme. "I always thought they had.I think I must go now." Oh, beyond question, she was the beautifulest. "Fair lady--" began the hermit. "I am Beatrix Trenholme--some call me Trix," she said. "You mustcome to the inn to see me." "I haven't been a stone's--throw from my cave in ten years,"said the hermit. "You must come to see me there," she repeated. "Any eveningexcept Thursday." The hermit smiled weakly. "Good-bye," she said, gathering the folds of her pale-blueskirt. "I shall expect you. But not on Thursday evening,remember." What an interest it would give to the future menu cards of theViewpoint Inn to have these printed lines added to them: "Only onceduring the more than ten years of his lonely existence did themountain hermit leave his famous cave. That was when he wasirresistibly drawn to the inn by the fascinations of Miss BeatrixTrenholme, youngest and most beautiful of the celebrated Trenholmesisters, whose brilliant marriage to--" Aye, to whom? The hermit walked back to the hermitage. At the door stood BobBinkley, his old friend and companion of the days before he hadrenounced the world--Bob, himself, arrayed like the orchids of thegreenhouse in the summer man's polychromatic garb--Bob, themillionaire, with his fat, firm, smooth, shrewd face, his diamondrings, sparkling fob-chain, and pleated bosom. He was two yearsolder than the hermit, and looked five years younger. "You're Hamp Ellison, in spite of those whiskers and thatgoing-away bathrobe," he shouted. "I read about you on the bill offare at the inn. They've run your biography in between the cheeseand 'Not Responsible for Coats and Umbrellas.' What 'd you do itfor, Hamp? And ten years, too-geewhilikins!"
"You're just the same," said the hermit. "Come in and sit down.Sit on that limestone rock over there; it's softer than thegranite." "I can't understand it, old man," said Binkley. "I can see howyou could give up a woman for ten years, but not ten years for awoman. Of course I know why you did it. Everybody does. Edith Carr.She jilted four or five besides you. But you were the only one whotook to a hole in the ground. The others had recourse to whiskey,the Klondike, politics, and that similia similibus cure. But,say--Hamp, Edith Carr was just about the finest woman in theworld--high-toned and proud and noble, and playing her ideals towin at all kinds of odds. She certainly was a crackerjack." "After I renounced the world," said the hermit, "I never heardof her again." "She married me," said Binkley. The hermit leaned against the wooden walls of his ante-cave andwriggled his toes. "I know how you feel about it," said Binkley. "What else couldshe do? There were her four sisters and her mother and old manCarr--you remember how he put all the money he had into dirigibleballoons? Well, everything was coming down and nothing going upwith 'em, as you might say. Well, I know Edith as well as youdo--although I married her. I was worth a million then, but I'verun it up since to between five and six. It wasn't me she wanted asmuch as--well, it was about like this. She had that bunch on herhands, and they had to be taken care of. Edith married me twomonths after you did the ground-squirrel act. I thought she likedme, too, at the time." "And now?" inquired the recluse. "We're better friends than ever now. She got a divorce from metwo years ago. Just incompatibility. I didn't put in any defence.Well, well, well, Hamp, this is certainly a funny dugout you'vebuilt here. But you always were a hero of fiction. Seems like you'dhave been the very one to strike Edith's fancy. Maybe you did--butit's the bank - roll that catches 'em, my boy-your caves andwhiskers won't do it. Honestly, Hamp, don't you think you've been adarned fool?" The hermit smiled behind his tangled beard. He was and alwayshad been so superior to the crude and mercenary Binkley that evenhis vulgarities could not anger him. Moreover, his studies andmeditations in his retreat had raised him far above the littlevanities of the world. His little mountain-side had been almost anOlympus, over the edge of which he saw, smiling, the bolts hurledin the valleys of man below. Had his ten years of renunciation, ofthought, of devotion to an ideal, of living scorn of a sordidworld, been in vain? Up from the world had come to him the youngestand beautifulest--fairer than Edith--one and three-seventh timeslovelier than the sevenyears-served Rachel. So the hermit smiledin his beard. When Binkley had relieved the hermitage from the blot of hispresence and the first faint star showed above the pines, thehermit got the can of baking-powder from his cupboard. He stillsmiled behind his beard.
There was a slight rustle in the doorway. There stood EdithCarr, with all the added beauty and stateliness and noble bearingthat ten years had brought her. She was never one to chatter. She looked at the hermit with herlarge, thinking, dark eyes. The hermit stood still, surprised intoa pose as motionless as her own. Only his subconscious sense of thefitness of things caused him to turn the baking-powder can slowlyin his hands until its red label was hidden against his bosom. "I am stopping at the inn," said Edith, in low but clear tones."I heard of you there. I told myself that I must see you. I want toask your forgiveness. I sold my happiness for money. There wereothers to be provided for--but that does not excuse me. I justwanted to see you and ask your forgiveness. You have lived here tenyears, they tell me, cherishing my memory! I was blind, Hampton. Icould not see then that all the money in the world cannot weigh inthe scales against a faithful heart. If--but it is too late now, ofcourse." Her assertion was a question clothed as best it could be in aloving woman's pride. But through the thin disguise the hermit saweasily that his lady had come back to him--if he chose. He had wona golden crown--if it pleased him to take it. The reward of hisdecade of faithfulness was ready for his hand--if he desired tostretch it forth. For the space of one minute the old enchantment shone upon himwith a reflected radiance. And then by turns he felt the manlysensations of indignation at having been discarded, and ofrepugnance at having been--as it were--sought again. And last ofall--how strange that it should have come at last!--the pale-bluevision of the beautifulest of the Trenholme sisters illuminated hismind's eye and left him without a waver. "It is too late," he said, in deep tones, pressing thebaking-powder can against his heart. Once she turned after she had gone slowly twenty yards down thepath. The hermit had begun to twist the lid off his can, but he hidit again under his sacking robe. He could see her great eyesshining sadly through the twilight; but he stood inflexible in thedoorway of his shack and made no sign. Just as the moon rose on Thursday evening the hermit was seizedby the world-madness. Up from the inn, fainter than the horns of elf-land, came nowand then a few bars of music played by the casino band. The Hudsonwas broadened by the night into an illimitable sea--those lights,dimly seen on its opposite shore, were not beacons for prosaictrolley- lines, but low-set stars millions of miles away. Thewaters in front of the inn were gay with fireflies--or were theymotor-boats, smelling of gasoline and oil? Once the hermit hadknown these things and had sported with Amaryllis in the shade ofthe red-and-white-striped awnings. But for ten years he had turneda heedless ear to these far- off echoes of a frivolous world. Butto-night there was something wrong. The casino band was playing a waltz--a waltz. What a fool he hadbeen to tear deliberately ten years of his life from the calendarof existence for one who had given him up for the false joys
thatwealth- -"tum ti tum ti tum ti"--how did that waltz go? But thoseyears had not been sacrificed--had they not brought him the starand pearl of all the world, the youngest and beautifulest of-"But do not come on Thursday evening," she had insisted. Perhapsby now she would be moving slowly and gracefully to the strains ofthat waltz, held closely by West-Pointers or city commuters, whilehe, who had read in her eyes things that had recompensed him forten lost years of life, moped like some wild animal in its mountainden. Why should--" "Damn it," said the hermit, suddenly, "I'll do it!" He threw down his Marcus Aurelius and threw off his gunny-sacktoga. he dragged a dustcovered trunk from a corner of the cave,and with difficulty wrenched open its lid. Candles he had in plenty, and the cave was soon aglow.Clothes--ten years old in cut--scissors, razors, hats, shoes, allhis discarded attire and belongings, were dragged ruthlessly fromtheir renunciatory rest and strewn about in painful disorder. A pair of scissors soon reduced his beard sufficiently for thedulled razors to perform approximately their office. Cutting hisown hair was beyond the hermit's skill. So he only combed andbrushed it backward as smoothly as he could. Charity forbids us toconsider the heartburnings and exertions of one so long removedfrom haberdashery and society. At the last the hermit went to an inner corner of his cave andbegan to dig in the soft earth with a long iron spoon. Out of thecavity he thus made he drew a tin can, and out of the can threethousand dollars in bills, tightly rolled and wrapped in oiledsilk. He was a real hermit, as this may assure you. You may take a brief look at him as he hastens down the littlemountain-side. A long, wrinkled black frock-coat reached to hiscalves. White duck trousers, unacquainted with the tailor's goose,a pink shirt, white standing collar with brilliant blue butterflytie, and buttoned congress gaiters. But think, sir and madam--tenyears! >From beneath a narrow-brimmed straw hat with a stripedband flowed his hair. Seeing him, with all your shrewdness youcould not have guessed him. You would have said that he playedHamlet--or the tuba--or pinochle--you would never have laid yourhand on your heart and said: "He is a hermit who lived ten years ina cave for love of one lady--to win another." The dancing pavilion extended above the waters of the river. Gaylanterns and frosted electric globes shed a soft glamour within it.A hundred ladies and gentlemen from the inn and summer cottagesflitted in and about it. To the left of the dusty roadway downwhich the hermit had tramped were the inn and grill-room. Somethingseemed to be on there, too. The windows were brilliantly lighted,and music was playing--music different from the two-steps andwaltzes of the casino band. A negro man wearing a white jacket came through the iron gate,with its immense granite posts and wrought-iron lamp-holders.
"What is going on here to-night?" asked the hermit. "Well, sah," said the servitor, "dey is having de reg'larThursday- evenin' dance in de casino. And in de grill-room dere's abeefsteak dinner, sah." The hermit glanced up at the inn on the hillside whence burstsuddenly a triumphant strain of splendid harmony. "And up there," said he, "they are playing Mendelssohn--what isgoing on up there?" "Up in de inn," said the dusky one, "dey is a weddin' goin' on.Mr. Binkley, a mighty rich man, am marryin' Miss Trenholme, sah--deyoung lady who am quite de belle of de place, sah."